photo credit: Markus Rödder

In the hospital we were encouraged to journal our thoughts. I wrote a lot about what I was feeling and thinking, both new thoughts and things I had felt for a long time. The second day I was there I took out my notebook and began writing what was in my head. It’s hard to admit sometimes those thoughts. I try to smile, to laugh, to joke, to appear normal. But inside there is a lot of self-hate, a lot of pain.

I wanted to share the first thing I wrote in my journal with someone. But, lacking someone close who can come over and read it, I thought I would do what I always do: share it here. With the world. Good or bad, this is how my head works.

I’ve read a lot of people calling me out for writing so openly on my blog, for sharing my thoughts in my darkest time. I was called selfish and a deviant, told that I was hurting others by putting my words out there. So, look away now if you don’t want to read what goes through my head. The last thing I want to do is hurt someone because of my insanity.

Bad

Bad

Bad

unlovable, ugly, stupid, no talent, empty, shallow, weak

bad wife, bad mother, unlovable

worthless

Go away, disappear, die, die, die, die

Broken
little pieces
unfix-able

Broken

bad
bad
bad

photo credit: motumboe

The first time I tried to kill myself I was 14. I jumped in front of a car screaming “kill me! Kill me!” I was completely sober. I don’t remember what made me do it, but I think I had found out that my boyfriend was cheating on me. It was a spur of the moment decision, one minute I’m walking down the sidewalk the next I’m standing in traffic. No one called the police, nothing happened. The driver threatened to beat me up, I walked back home.

The second time I was 15. I took a bottle of pills and went to bed at an ex boyfriend’s house. He was out partying for the night, so I knew no one would find me for a while. I had no home, my mom had taken off with a new boyfriend and I hadn’t seen her in months. I was house hopping, doing a lot of drugs, and drinking daily. Instead of dying I woke up hours later throwing up. The best friend of my ex was there, he helped me get up, cleaned the vomit, and then raped me. I was still out of it from the pills, so I couldn’t do more than lay there and take it. No one called the police, not even me.

After that I started drinking and doing drugs more heavily. The pain, the emptiness, they went away if I could just get high enough. I walked the line between functioning and not. I still went to school, I had good grades, I graduated in the top 10 percent of my class. A few people commented on the black eyes, or the time I went to school with my back covered in bruises because mom’s boyfriend came at me with a broom stick. A few times I slept in the park, showed up early to shower and change clothes in the gym before students arrived. I smelled, I rarely was able to brush my hair, the school lunch was sometimes the only food I ate. No one did anything, so I did more and more drugs.

After Evan was born I wanted to die. I laid awake at night, listening to Michael snore, and told myself how worthless I was. I was certain I would destroy my baby’s life if I lived. I just wanted to die, to go away forever, to not hurt my baby.

Eventually it got better, then we had Trey. I went to the hardware store and bought a rope. I learned to tie it in a proper hangman’s noose. I kept it sitting on top of the dresser where I kept all my scrapbook things. Michael never questioned it, never asked me about it. I was waiting for him to take the kids, go to his mother’s or the store or anywhere. I didn’t want the kids to be home, to find me, to be alone. But that day never came.

When Michael left, he packed up the kids and drove to his parents. I was alone, I was empty, and I didn’t have a baggie of drugs to find comfort in. I was also scared. I was terrified that I would fail and be a vegetable for life. I would be a burden, more so than I already was. I failed at so many things, I knew I would fail at killing myself.

Now I’m sitting in an empty apartment, alone. I don’t have my kids, and I’ll probably never see them again. I want to find the answer in the bottom of a bag. I’ve been clean for 8 years, and I just want to snort lines and pop pills until the voices in my head go away. Until everything goes away. My brain is screaming at me “just get high,” and I want to so badly. I want to fall into a blackness that never ends and float away forever.

I’m alone, and it hurts. And I don’t have the words to explain how it hurts, and I’m afraid no one would understand. I’m alone, and I don’t know how to function. I’ve been clinging to something or someone else to make me feel alive for so long that I don’t even know where I’m supposed to begin now. I’m alone, and I’m scared.

I’m alone.

photo credit: kevindooley

Depression hurts.

There’s an aspect of physical pain that comes with depression, but it doesn’t compare to the emotional pain that encompasses every pore. Imagine your worst heartache, then multiply it by 1000. That’s how it feels to just get out of bed.

The pain is heartbreaking, it grips your very soul and makes you not want to breath, it rips apart any ounce of self-confidence that you might of had. All you need it a moment, just a moment of happiness, but that moment doesn’t come. And so you’re left drowning in the pain.

You’re own brain becomes your worst enemy. It tells you that you’re not good enough, that you’re bad, that you’re ugly, stupid, worthless, wrong, unlovable.

Bad.

Bad.

Bad.

You feel it in every ounce of your being. You see every mistake, every fault, every flaw. They stand out before your eyes like a spotlight has hit them, to the point where you can’t see anything else. All you know is how wrong you are.

Bad.

Bad.

Bad.

You reach a point when you’re only action is to stop the pain. When it’s all you can think about, all you can dream about. Stop the pain, make it go away, stop feeling like this. You need the hurt to end. You need your brain to be quiet. You would do anything to stop it. You have to do something to stop it.

Depression hurts.